Extended attributes and participle phrases

At C1 German starts compressing. A relative clause that would sit after the noun in ordinary prose gets folded in front of it instead, so “die Karten, die in flachen Vitrinen liegen” becomes “die in flachen Vitrinen liegenden Karten”. Same information, one clause instead of two, and a register that says essay, review or abstract rather than conversation.

The same participles can also stand outside the noun phrase, set off by a comma, doing the work of an adverbial clause: “In flachen Vitrinen liegend, wirken die Karten kleiner, als sie sind.” Two positions, one set of forms — so learn the forms once and the rest is placement.

The two participles

Partizip I is the infinitive plus -d, and it is active and simultaneous: the thing is doing it, now. Partizip II is the form you already know from the Perfekt, and it is passive and completed: the thing has had it done to it.

The pair “die lesende Frau” and “das gelesene Buch” shows the whole distinction: the woman reads, the book gets read. Choosing the wrong participle does not produce a clumsy phrase, it produces the opposite meaning — a book cannot be lesend.

Position one: folded in front of the noun

Build it out of the relative clause you would otherwise have written. There are four moves, and the last one is the one people forget.

• •1. Start from the relative clause: die Karten, die in flachen Vitrinen liegen.
• •2. Delete the relative pronoun and turn the finite verb into a participle: liegen → liegend.
• •3. Move the whole phrase in between the article and the noun: die [in flachen Vitrinen liegend] Karten.
• •4. Decline the participle exactly like an adjective, agreeing with the noun: die in flachen Vitrinen liegenden Karten.

• ein erstaunlich fein abgestuftes Instrumentarium

  a remarkably finely graded set of instruments

  Partizip II — it was graded. Neuter nominative, so -es

• die in den letzten Jahren stark gestiegenen Mieten

  rents, which have risen sharply in recent years

  six words between article and noun — perfectly ordinary at C1

• der von allen Beteiligten unterschriebene Vertrag

  the contract signed by everyone involved

  Partizip II carries a von-phrase, exactly as a passive would

zu + Partizip I: the one that means “must be”

There is a third form, built only from transitive verbs: zu plus Partizip I, declined as usual. It means the thing has to be, or can be, done — the attributive twin of the sein + zu construction.

• die zu lösende Aufgabe

  the task to be solved

  = die Aufgabe, die gelöst werden muss

• der zu zahlende Betrag

  the amount payable

  the standard phrase on an invoice

• die noch zu klärenden Fragen

  the questions still to be clarified

  plural, so -en; noch slots in before zu

Position two: the free participle phrase

Here the participle phrase stands outside the noun phrase, marked off by a comma, compressing a whole subordinate clause into a few words. It has no subject of its own — and that is the entire difficulty, because German silently takes the subject of the main clause.

• In flachen Vitrinen liegend, wirken die Karten kleiner, als sie sind.

  Lying in flat display cases, the maps look smaller than they are.

  who is lying? die Karten — the main clause subject

• Vom Erfolg überrascht, sagte sie zunächst gar nichts.

  Surprised by the success, she said nothing at first.

  Partizip II, so the subject is on the receiving end

• Sorgfältig argumentierend, kam er zu einem anderen Schluss.

  Arguing carefully, he reached a different conclusion.

  Partizip I — he is doing the arguing

So before you write one, check the subject. If the participle's implied doer is not the subject of the main clause, the sentence says something absurd, and German is less forgiving about this than English — where the dangling participle is common enough to have become a style-guide cliché rather than an error people actually notice.

Common mistakes

• ✗die in flachen Vitrinen liegend Karten

  ✓die in flachen Vitrinen liegenden Karten

  Inside a noun phrase the participle is an adjective and takes adjective endings. The bare participle only stands alone in the free, comma-marked version.

• ✗das gelesende Buch

  ✓das gelesene Buch

  A blend of the two participles. Partizip II is gelesen; the -end belongs to Partizip I, and they cannot both be there.

• ✗die lesenden Bücher (meaning: the books that get read)

  ✓die gelesenen Bücher

  Partizip I is active. “Lesende Bücher” are books that are doing the reading — grammatical, and not what you meant.

• ✗Die Karten betrachtend, war die Ausstellung beeindruckend.

  ✓Die Karten betrachtend, fand ich die Ausstellung beeindruckend.

  The exhibition cannot look at the maps. A free participle takes its subject from the main clause, so the main clause has to supply one that can do the action.

• ✗die zu lösenden Aufgabe

  ✓die zu lösende Aufgabe

  Declension follows the noun, and Aufgabe is singular. The -en would be right for “die zu lösenden Aufgaben”.

• ✗Die Ausstellung, in flachen Vitrinen liegend, war klein.

  ✓Die in flachen Vitrinen liegenden Karten wirkten klein.

  Not a grammar error but a meaning one: the free phrase attaches to the subject, so this says the exhibition was lying in the cases. If you mean the maps, the maps must be the subject.

Both constructions belong to written German and to a fairly formal end of it — a Rezension, a Tagungsabstract, an Essay, a Vorwort. In speech they sound recited. And like nominalisation, they are easy to overdo: a sentence with two folded attributes and a free participle is technically correct and genuinely hard to read, which defeats the compression you were reaching for. One per sentence is plenty. If you want the uncompressed version, that is the relative clause, and it has its own guide.